Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/31

Rh in his mortal breast the most poignant and unquiet sensation. The desire of surviving his perishable existence, and of transmitting to posterity his heroical achievements, is an idol to which his last sacrifices are offered up.

This enthusiasm, of equal antiquity with man himself, has constantly led him to have recourse to a thousand expedients, to elude, as it were, the painful limit of his inevitable destiny, and to avenge its attacks. Odoriferous and aromatic substances, balsams, cedar, brass, and marble, on the one hand; on the other, compositions replete with melody, brilliant recitals, emblems, and fine images, which have an efficacious power to attract attention and excite surprize;—such are the obstacles which the pride of mortals has opposed to the voraciousness of time. Hence have arisen mummies, which are preserved for thousands of years, reckoning from their original corruptibility; the mausolea in which they are inclosed; obelisks; pyramids; statues; and all the monuments in which the chisel and the graver display their magic skill, to perpetuate the posthumous memory of the hero and the man of illustrious birth. To this same principle we are indebted for poetry, for history, whether traditional or expressed by symbols, and for all the sketches and designs in which the pencil manifests its powers.

These precious trophies of the vanity and grandeur of men and of nations, destined to immortalize the triumphs of valour, of virtue, and, occasionally, of fanaticism, form, without doubt, an object worthy the consideration and study of the man of letters. But for them, what information could we have obtained relative to those obscure ages which gave birth to monarchies, arts, and sciences, and in which modes and Rh